Some athletes don\u2019t do much after leaving their sport; some go into broadcasting; some immerse themselves entirely into charity. But trying to become the next young-adult fiction sensation is a bit rarer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monica Seles, the 39-year-old Serbian-born winner of nine Grand Slam tennis titles and an Olympic bronze medal, has spent the years since her official retirement in 2008 writing, first releasing the 2010 memoir \u201cGetting a Grip.\u201d That book detailed the aftermath of her 1993 stabbing by a Steffi Graf fan as well as her struggles with binge-eating. Her newest tome, \u201cThe Academy: Game On,\u201d is a bit lighter, a takeoff on the \u201cGossip Girl\u201d genre set at a competitive youth tennis academy akin to the one Seles attended in Bradenton, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seles describes her fiction as a \u201cfantasy journal,\u201d rewriting a tense and competitive childhood at a tennis-only school into a salacious and fun look at athletes of all stripes (and both genders!) cohabitating in the Florida sun. Calling from a charity event in Miami, Seles talked about her regrets, why her stabbing injury was \u201cunnecessary,\u201d how Serena Williams has changed the game, and figuring out what she\u2019ll spend the rest of her life doing after competitive tennis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who approached whom to put this project together? It\u2019s kind of an unusual next step for a tennis player \u2014 or for a tell-all memoirist.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I couldn\u2019t agree more. The autobiographies I did are very different, about hard experiences I went through. It was hard to live them again, a really raw feeling. Doing a novel \u2014 I\u2019d had this idea three or four years ago, and during rain delays at exhibition games or while traveling by myself, I wrote a lot. It was kind of a fantasy journal. Over the years, I talked with my agent \u2014 and I wanted to tell him that I had this great idea, but people always say, \u201cOh yeah, another great idea, whatever.\u201d It was so unknown to me, and I am so afraid of the unknown. I had lunch with him and said \u201cThis could be a great book.\u201d He said, \u201cReally?\u201d I told him I\u2019d done a couple of chapters, told him to see what he thinks, and maybe send it out. It took me a few weeks to get the nerve to send it. Finally, blah blah blah, he saw something in it. The academy is a crazy world and most people don\u2019t get to see it. And I saw it from all sides \u2014 I have friends who are now parents sending their kids there. We shopped the book around and I was very excited when publishers showed interest. I was over the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To what degree were you reliving \u2014 or re-imagining \u2014 your experiences with this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I see myself a little bit in the character of Maya, the kid outsider who comes to the academy. It\u2019s a very different world \u2014 not much social interaction, you\u2019re thrown into this environment that\u2019s sink or swim. I definitely felt that as a kid when I won a scholarship to an academy. You wake up worried your scholarship will be taken away \u2014 the same as it is for Maya. When I was at the camp, I didn\u2019t have such a social life even as Maya. When I was there, it was only tennis. I could never have had the friendship Maya and Cleo had \u2014 it was so cutthroat. That\u2019s what I didn\u2019t like about my childhood. In my fantasy world, I wanted to change it and have Maya have another athlete with similar issues she has, but be in a different sport and serve as a sounding board. It\u2019s a totally different environment that\u2019s very competitive and people will use anything against you, because very few people are going to succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you advise parents to send their children to an athletic academy \u2014 or advise children to go there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The academy is a very individual choice. Some days, I loved it; some I hated it; some days I was just ambivalent. If you want the sport of your choice to be a career, to live, eat, breathe sport \u2014 it\u2019s the right place for you. Nowadays, academies are much bigger places \u2014 it\u2019s gone from 70 people when I was there to about 400. It\u2019s a much more luxurious area down there and more thought has been given to the psychology of athletes, and building a person, not just building a champion. I\u2019m very thankful I went \u2014 the competitive environment in my sport got me ready for professional tennis which is much more cutthroat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Has it been challenging for you to enter adult life after the end of your competitive career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, yeah. I think it\u2019s a very complicated challenge, in a way. It\u2019s an easier challenge because, financially, you don\u2019t have the same challenges as my friends who went to college who are still paying off loans, as they always remind me. If you work from 14 to 32 or so, you get to decide what you like to do and what you\u2019re really good at. The focus is so much on tennis \u2014 yes, you did school, but when you turn pro at 15, it\u2019s not the same level of focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, it\u2019s been trying to learn more about what I like and what I don\u2019t, not being afraid of it. Doing this novel was a personal breakthrough. Talking to my agent was a baby step. It\u2019s at that point when I\u2019m still discovering what I enjoy. And I\u2019ll never be as good at anything else as I am at tennis. You only have so much time to master things. Even though I started out playing tennis, I never imagined I\u2019d have so many career highs and lows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given that writing is more challenging for you than tennis, did you get much out of it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s a lot of fun. I had my co-writer, James [LaRosa], who has written a lot for the Tennis Channel. Working with someone who\u2019s connected to tennis \u2014 there were so many common things, and it was such a fun process writing it. It didn\u2019t feel like a job, like, \u201cOh no, we have this deadline\u201d; it was a very enjoyable process. Getting involved with the art, the cover, things like that. I wish it was more sexy, but it\u2019s for young adults, and we only want to push it so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have any regrets about your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t believe in regret. In 1993, what happened, I think it was unnecessary to go through that at 1993. I wish my dad was around for more of my career; he missed that second stage of my career. I was so lucky I got to do a sport I love. When you lose a match, it\u2019s a tough loss and you\u2019re down on yourself. But with the extreme happiness in your day-to-day life, it\u2019s hard to compare to anything, and I struggle with that. When you have that trophy in your hand, all the complaining is worth it. When you\u2019re crying in your hotel room, alone, over one or two close points \u2014 you\u2019re able to put it into perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you make of the women\u2019s tennis scene these days? The Williams sisters have made it such a power game.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the last few years of my career, I experienced their power. To me, Serena is still the most powerful player, that hasn\u2019t changed. In the game, besides Serena and [Maria] Sharapova, with all the other players, there\u2019s a lot of inconsistency. That\u2019s good for the sport. Marion Bartoli winning Wimbledon was totally unexpected, and brought fresh blood in. Now we\u2019re looking for the next generation. As a fan, after Serena retires, you wonder, is somebody able to surpass that? What will that player look like? Or will the game stagnate as we wait for the next superstar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is the book going to be a series?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m definitely doing a second book. How far after that, I obviously have no idea. I hope I have the opportunity to do more. A company bought the TV rights to it, we\u2019ll see if that goes anywhere. It\u2019s something very new, and I\u2019m a kid in a candy store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some athletes don\u2019t do much after leaving their sport; some go into broadcasting; some immerse themselves entirely into charity. But trying to become the next young-adult fiction sensation is a bit rarer. Monica Seles, the 39-year-old Serbian-born winner of nine Grand Slam tennis titles and an Olympic bronze medal, has spent the years since her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,56],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}